It is a great honour and a tremendous pleasure for me to be here with you today.

Please let me welcome to ITU Her Excellency Dame Patience Jonathan, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and President of African First Ladies Peace Mission.

Excellency, we are greatly honoured by your presence.

First of all, I am delighted to announce that ITU and the Federal Republic of Nigeria have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of a Regional Cybersecurity Centre for Africa in Nigeria.

A Cooperation Agreement is presently under coordination between IMPACT and NCC under the framework of the present MoU and will be signed shortly.

This Regional Centre will facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration on combatting cyber threats at the regional and national levels—with an emphasis on activities related to child online protection.

Under her Excellency’s guidance, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is now taking extensive steps to ensure a safer online environment for children. Dame Patience is a progressive leader and renowned humanitarian, and she has won numerous accolades for her charitable work involving women and children. She has founded many philanthropic and empowerment programmes for children and women. These include programmes to improve the status and earning capacity of Nigerian youths and women.

ITU is looking forward to collaborating even more closely with Dame Patience and her country Nigeria to build a better future for our children.

We are here today to appoint Dame Patience Jonathan as the ITU Champion for Child Online Protection.

Distinguished colleagues,Ladies and gentlemen,

Before we proceed to the inaugural ceremony, there will now be a presentation of an overview of the ITU’s work to date on Child Online Protection followed by presentations on some of our other current activities.

Your commitment will significantly strengthen this global movement to protect our children online no matter where they live, no matter what the circumstances they are in.

We know that we can count on your valuable and important work in this domain, and we are very grateful for your dedication to this vital goal – the goal of making cyberspace safe for our children, and safe for the future anywhere in the world.